


Castle Season 6 The Lost Episode: A Dish Served Cold

by BlueAvenue



Category: Castle
Genre: Abduction, F/F, Gags, Non-Consensual Bondage, Peril, Rope Bondage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-04
Updated: 2015-05-04
Packaged: 2020-07-09 23:45:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,384
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19896358
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlueAvenue/pseuds/BlueAvenue
Summary: The wife of the disgraced Sen. William Bracken takes it upon herself to exact revenge on Castle and Beckett.





	Castle Season 6 The Lost Episode: A Dish Served Cold

**Author's Note:**

> Even villains have families. There was no mention of what became of Senator William Bracken's family following his arrest, which struck me as a missed opportunity for a story arc far less contrived than Castle being abducted at the close of Season 6 and Season 8's preposterous LokSat conspiracy. So did Mrs. Bracken go into hiding? Hire a good divorce lawyer? Appear on television to defend her husband's name and reputation? Or...did she plot an especially twisted vengeance instead? This "standalone" story is based on exactly that premise. I have taken liberties with the established Castleverse, including the creation of the Eleanor Bracken character.

Eleanor Bracken, normally the least patient of women, allowed herself a few moments of relaxation as Szulc--she had never known her husband's faithful factotum by other name, simply Szulc--circled the rear of the town car to get the door for her. For what she suspected would be the last time in her life she inhaled deeply of leather upholstery, thrilled to a Prokofiev piano concerto lilting from hidden speakers. However brief her respite was well earned. Last night at this time an unforeseen development had left all Eleanor's plans in disarray; she faced the prospect of exposure, further disgrace, imprisonment. But Overton and his people were the best, deserving of the top dollar she paid them. They adapted, improvised, cobbled together an entirely new plan on the ruins of the old. And then, three hours ago, last night's bad luck had been offset by an equally unexpected stroke of good fortune, as though the cosmos was not only balancing the scales but tipping them in her favor. The quarry had obligingly walked into the trap set for her and now awaited Eleanor Bracken's pleasure.

 _And make no mistake,_ thought Eleanor, _I will take considerable pleasure in your exceedingly messy demise, Detective Beckett, to say nothing of your lover's. William will be so pleased when they bring him the news. Our children will grieve, of course, but they are Brackens. We raised them to be strong and resilient. One day they'll understand._

 _S_ zulc opened the door with his customary deferential nod. A vented umbrella unfurled in his left hand as she stepped from the car. He extended it so quickly only a spattering of raindrops landed in her frosted blonde coiffure. No sooner had Szulc closed the door behind her than Lester gunned the big Lincoln down the potholed street, leaving the two of them standing in the middle of a moonscape. Abandoned tenements on one side, vacant storefronts on the other. Gentrification had yet to arrive in this blighted and forsaken section of East New York. Eleanor waited until the town car disappeared around the corner. Even NYPD avoided this neighborhood after dark except in response to multiple 911 calls, on the theory a single call was nothing more than an invitation to an ambush. But there still an off chance a cruiser would turn up at an unpropitious moment. No, better to have her chauffer make a leisurely detour through Nassau County, circle back on the surface streets and collect her in time for her final trip into Manhattan.

A flashlight winked at them from the side door of an abandoned garage. Eleanor kept pace with Szulc, the brisk clatter of her heels unnaturally loud in the 2 AM stillness. The black-clad figure awaiting them wore a form-fitting mask--she believed _balaclava_ was the proper term--over his head, scanning the street through the narrow eye slit. He held the door until she and Szulc were safely inside. The garage had long since been stripped of wiring, plumbing, anything that could be recycled. Its interior smelled of mold, gasoline, urine, weed. A colony of homeless had squatted here until Overton ran them off personally. They knew better than to risk his wrath by returning. One of his operatives handed Eleanor a heavy duty rechargeable flashlight. She thumbed it on, playing the shaft of smoky white light around the empty echoing space. Bare walls, boarded up windows, rectangular patches on the floor where storage cabinets and workbenches once rested. At the center of it all, a showroom new Mercedes Benz GL Class SUV. Overton and his second-in-command Melody stood at the open lift gate of the Benz, guarding a strikingly beautiful if severely underdressed woman perched stiffly on the rear bumper. The clash of steel on steel as the captive wrenched at her handcuffs brought a smile to Eleanor's lips. She angled the flashlight beam upward, casting her patrician features into eerie relief while leaving no doubt on her unwilling guest's part who was ultimately responsible for her dire and humiliating plight.

"You goddamn fucking bitch," growled Detective 2nd Grade Kate Beckett, 12th Squad, City of New York Police Department. Off-duty she was the fiancée of celebrated crime novelist Richard Castle and the inspiration for his Nikki Heat novels, each title in the series a _New York Times_ bestseller. At the moment she also had the unenviable distinction of being Eleanor Bracken's prisoner. Eleanor had last seen Kate on Page Six of the _Post,_ pictured on Castle's arm at a black tie charity dinner. The gown she wore for the occasion, a Vera Wang knockoff that adhered to her every supple curve like a coat of lacquer, was a far cry from her present state of dishabille. Immediately after her capture Beckett had been stripped to her cranberry red demi-bra and matching panties (Victoria's Secret unless Eleanor missed her guess), ostensibly to relieve her of any concealed weapons. Melody had removed her watch and engagement ring as well. Sadly the latter would have to be broken up for its individual stones. Kate's one remaining accessory was the set of regulation handcuffs--her own--now locking her wrists together at the small of her back. _I specified that you be delivered to me wearing the same cuffs you placed on my husband,_ thought Eleanor, savoring this moment of triumph. _Do you appreciate the delicious irony as much as I?_

"Hey there, Miz Bracken," said Melody, a lanky woman with graying spiky hair. On first meeting her Eleanor had suspected the West Texas twang was an affectation but now realized it was utterly authentic. "Looks like Mission Accomplished."

Detective Beckett attempted to shake a tangle of tawny hair from her gray-green eyes. She was not entirely successful. "Bitch, I'm going to see to it you get _Miz_ Bracken for a cellmate. Hope you enjoy the next twenty-five to life together. There are over thirty thousand cops in this city, and by morning every last one of them will be searching for me."

"Of that I have no doubt," said Eleanor dryly. 

"Castle will find me even if the Department can't."

"Nor will he have to use the renowned deductive powers that made him so valuable to you as unofficial consultant for the NYPD. You see, I plan on leading him directly to you."

Kate's eyes narrowed. "Say again?"

"All will be explained shortly, my dear. But first..." She turned to Melody. "Being from the Southwest you must have a certain expertise in roping and tying."

"Sure do, ma'am." In fact Melody's long and varied resume included a side job as a professional bondage rigger.

"I wish for Detective Beckett to spend the final hours of her life in as much discomfort as possible. Would you please see to that?"

"Thought you'd never ask," said Melody, reaching inside her duster coat. She brought forth a bundle of braided manila rope, precut into manageable lengths.

"God damn you," hissed Kate Beckett. "Don't you _dare_ tie me up!"

"An' just how do you plan on stopping me, Darlin'? Stand her up for me, Frank." Overton seized Kate by the shoulders and planted her bare feet on the floor, holding her immobile while Melody coiled rope around the policewoman's arms. She worked swiftly and surely even in this low light, leaving no doubt in Eleanor's mind she was an old hand at this, cinching and knotting the rope until Kate Beckett's elbows were pinioned cruelly behind her. Only then did the rigger unlock the cuffs, stowing them in a coat pocket.

Overton broke his silence. "Is that wise? We had one helluva time getting those on her in the first place."

"Frank," Melody said patiently, "how long we known each other?"

"Eleven years going on twelve."

"An' how many jobs we been on together?"

"More than I can count."

"Then you know by now that when I tie up a woman, she stays tied up." Melody bound Kate's hands palm to palm, finishing with a set of self-locking knots she had no hope of reaching let alone untying. "I'm keeping her cuffs as a memento."

"Detective Beckett, red is definitely your color," Eleanor remarked cattily. "Surely your bra and panties aren't NYPD issue. A little bedtime surprise for Mr. Castle, perhaps?"

Kate impaled her with a look of seething hatred. "None of your fucking business."

"I've had enough of your insolence, young lady." Eleanor backhanded her viciously across the mouth. The blow left Kate momentarily stunned; she would have folded to the gritty floor had she not been in Overton's viselike grip. He seated her on the bumper again so Melody could finish tying her up.

"Speaking of Castle, I imagine he's wondering if you stood him up," Eleanor continued imperturbably. "Surely he's contacted your precinct and learned from the desk sergeant you clocked out at eleven along with Detectives Ryan and Esposito after putting in a fourteen hour day. He'll assume you stopped at that cop bar on West 21st on your way home--which is where you were headed when Mr. Overton's team bushwhacked you.

"By now you must be asking yourself why I engaged these wetwork operatives to waylay you. I shouldn't have to stage a Power Point presentation. The last month has been a waking nightmare. Watching you arrest my husband in his own office at the Capitol--you had to do that in front of television cameras, didn't you--watching you parade him down the front steps in triumph and stuff him into a police car like a common criminal--"

"That's precisely what he is," Kate retorted. "Or have you forgotten my mother was murdered on his orders?"

"And who was your mother, really? A civil liberties attorney, a do-gooder in short. Had she left well enough alone she'd still be alive and looking forward to your wedding. But I digress. Being hounded by the press, having to abandon both our homes and go into seclusion, that wasn't the worst of it. I'm the one who had to explain Bill's downfall to our children."

"I'm supposed to feel pity for you?" asked Kate, flinching as Melody roped her slender ankles firmly together. Her long, graceful legs were already tightly bound above and below the knees.

"Our daughter Brianna had to withdraw from Cornell. She couldn't leave her dorm without a camera crew lying in wait. People actually _jeered_ as she walked to class. I had to pull my sons from boarding school and hire someone to tutor them at home."

"You're married to a man with blood on his hands! My mom, my captain, one or two retired cops, God knows how many others. All collateral damage on your husband's road to the White House."

"You and your boyfriend deprived this country of a great President and deprived me of a future. And for that you both deserve to die. Load her in the car, Mr. Overton. Let's get on with this."

Overton wrestled his squirming, cursing captive into the rear cargo area. Melody climbed in after her, threading yet another length of rope between Kate's ankles before lashing them to her bound wrists. Kate was unable to suppress a grunt of pain as the rigger hitched the braided ropes punishingly taut, making them fast with a series of escape proof knots. Once Melody was done, she backed out of the cargo area so her employer could relish the sight of Detective Kate Beckett roped into an uncompromising West Texas hogtie. 

"All trussed up and nowhere to go," Eleanor said with a smile of purest malice. "Oh yes, I'll want a photo of this to share with your boyfriend." She framed Kate in her iPhone display and snapped a picture. "My one regret is that Bill isn't here to see this."

"Oh yeah, her sweet ass is tied up real good," agreed Overton. "No way in hell she's getting loose." He turned as a bespectacled, sallow-looking man in coveralls slid from behind the steering wheel. "Mitch, how we doin' there?"

"Single block of Semtex wired under the dash," Mitch reported. His low, snuffling voice immediately grated on Eleanor's nerves.

"That gonna do the job?"

"Any more'n that we'd take out not only this building but the ones to either side." Mitch slapped a Mercedes remote entry device into Overton's outstretched hand. "Locking the car doors arms the bomb. Unlocking them triggers it. Goddamn shame we can't hang around to see the lady cop get blown to shreds."

"You _motherfuckers!"_ snarled Kate. "I hope you all burn in fucking hell!"

"We really should do something about that mouth of yours," Eleanor said. "Melody, any suggestions?"

"Hang on," chirped the rigger. "Got something in my gear bag that's just the ticket."

Eleanor leaned inside the cargo area where the nearly naked Kate lay hogtied and helpless. "My next stop is your fiancé's loft in Tribeca."

"Soho," Kate corrected.

"Soho then. I shall put on the performance of a lifetime for him. Did I mention that I majored in Drama at UVA? _Mr. Castle, I bankrolled the abduction of your girlfriend. I fully intended to have her killed but I've since had a change of heart. My sons and daughter are already living with the shame of a father in prison; to have their mother behind bars as well would be unbearable. My limousine is downstairs, together we'll drive to where I left Detective Beckett bound and gagged. I'm hoping the district attorney will be lenient in return for my help in effecting her rescue._ Oh, I'll have him eating out of my hand."

"Rick will never believe you," Kate said.

"A desperate man will cling to any shred of hope the way a drowning man clings to a lifeline. Oh yes, Mr. Castle will accompany me here."

"Not alone. He'll bring half the NYPD with him."

"I'll make it clear to him he is not to involve the police. I'm prepared to surrender to you and you alone, otherwise the deal is off. Should he object, I'll point out you're hogtied inside an SUV booby-trapped with a bomb--that much is true--which can only be disarmed by keying in a four digit code from my cellphone. Mr. Castle, with his penchant for white knight heroics, will insist on saving you personally rather than risk the lives of brave police officers."

"He may be desperate, but he's not stupid. He'll smell a trap."

"Of course he will. That's why I'll offer to escort him inside, becoming his hostage in effect. I shall pretend to disarm the bomb from my cell phone, hand him the key fob and tell him it's safe to unlock the doors now. When he does the bomb detonates anyway."

"But you'll be killed too!"

"Obviously," Eleanor said, as though to a cocker spaniel with a cognitive disability. "Detective Beckett, I've been dying by inches since the afternoon I turned on my television and watched you handcuff Bill. I can continue dying by inches or I can die cleanly, painlessly. My martyrdom will serve as an example to my children. What truly matters is that you and Castle, the couple that conspired to bring down my husband, will die with me."

"Jesus," whispered Kate Beckett in genuine awe. "You truly are fucking insane."

"I believe I've heard enough from you for one lifetime. Ah, there you are, Melody. My, that certainly looks revolting. Do I dare ask what it is?"

"A penis gag," said the rigger, dangling it before Kate's horrified eyes. The attached dildo was nearly four inches in length. "The business end is silicon, won't leave you with that yucky rubber taste."

Eleanor sniggered. "Yes well, I'm sure it won't be the first time she's had a strange cock in her mouth."

"Open wide for me," urged Melody. "If it helps, pretend you're getting your teeth cleaned."

" _Noooo!_ " Kate strained uselessly against her bonds. "I'm not letting you put that fucking thing in _u_ _rrrnngh!"_ She gagged violently as the dildo penetrated to the back of her throat.

"Much better." Melody swept a sheaf of hair from the nape of Kate's neck and tightened the leather straps to fix the gag solidly in place.

"Silenced and degraded all at once," Eleanor said approvingly. She took another picture. "Never fear, I'll return with your paramour before daybreak. While you languish here alone in the dark, reflect on how foolish you were to ever challenge the Brackens. Who has her badge, by the way?"

"Right here," said Overton. He held out the leather case containing Jade's photo ID and the coveted gold shield of a New York City detective. "I was sort of hoping--"

Eleanor cut him short. "Hoping what?"

"Well...I figured if Melody could take her handcuffs as a trophy I could hang onto the badge. Not every day I get to take down a cop, never mind one who's a celebrity."

"You'll have to be content with her ID card and service weapon." Eleanor worked the shield free of the case and pinned it to the waistband of Kate's panties. "A dedicated police officer like you shouldn't die in the line of duty without your badge of office. Bad form and all that."

" _Hrrrrmmm!"_ Kate thrashed from side to side in frenzied, futile struggle. Eleanor Bracken nodded to Overton, who closed the lift gate. He then aimed the keyless remote at the Benz. The SUV locked itself down, imprisoning Kate Beckett within, accompanied by a _thump!_ indicative of German engineering and craftsmanship.

"I'll take that," said Eleanor, holding out her hand for the remote.

The wetwork specialist hesitated. "You are aware the bomb is now armed."

"I shall handle it with extreme care, Mr. Overton."

"You're paying the bills." He placed the device in her palm. "Mrs. Bracken, maybe it's not my place to ask--"

"It's not. I am most grateful to you and your associates for snatching victory from the jaws of defeat. I trust your compensation was adequate?"

"Yes, ma'am!"

"Then I suggest we get the hell out of here."

They filed outside in silence, Eleanor and Szulc, leading the way, Overton and his crew--Melody, Mitch, the three menacing figures in balaclavas--trailing after. Overton secured the door with a Master padlock, turning the key over to Eleanor. A burgundy van leprous with rust slid into the curb with lights off. Melody claimed the shotgun seat up front while the others boarded through the side door.

"This is more curiosity than anything else," Eleanor said. "But where did you lay hands on that SUV?"

Overton grinned slyly. "Let's just say a Mercedes dealership in Westchester County will find themselves shy one GL Class when they open for business tomorrow and leave it at that. We opted for the Benz because Mitch used to be a service tech for them. He's familiar with their ignition and lock systems."

"Still a waste of a perfectly good automobile, but that can't be helped I suppose. You obviously have someplace to be, so I won't detain you further. Farewell, Mr. Overton."

The hard-looking man who killed on commission seemed troubled by her use of the word "farewell" instead of the more conventional "goodbye," but said nothing. He gave Eleanor a terse nod and entered the idling van. It pulled away, leaving her and Szulc alone on the desolate street. Not that she feared for her safety; Szulc would snap the neck of anyone who looked even remotely threatening like a No. 2 pencil.

Eleanor pulled out her phone and called her driver. Waiting for him to answer, she pictured Kate Beckett lying gagged and bound in her lacy underthings, trapped inside an automobile rigged to explode at the touch of a button. Was she even now weeping in frustration at being unable to escape Melody's brutally tight ropes and cunningly tied knots? Eleanor most sincerely hoped so. 

Lester answered on the first ring as he was required to. "Good morning, Mrs. Bracken."

"How far out are you, Lester?"

"Five blocks ma'am. I'll be rolling up inside of two minutes. I stopped at a 7-11 and refilled my thermos if you could do with some hot coffee."

"Yes, that would be divine." Eleanor Cortland took a deep breath, released it slowly. "I have miles to go before I sleep." 

_fini_


End file.
